Thursday, October 8, 2015

NCAAF 2015: PAC 12 & MOUNTAIN WEST BREAKDOWN THROUGH WEEK FIVE

Once per week I will be giving my readers a deeper dive on
two conferences using my SBPI (SportsBoss Power Index) as a basis.For those who may not be familiar with the
SBPI please view the latest
entry to my blog.That entry gives a
high level look at how I calculate the SBPI & includes a link to another
article I posted that counts down the Top 30 teams of the last six seasons
according to SBPI.If you have more
interest you can find my weekly entries from last year’s SBPI by using the
toolbar on the right side of the page, select 2014, and search for “NCAAF 2014
SBPI.”As always I am happy to answer
any questions via email or Twitter (@sportsboss).

In the first installment I will be breaking down the Pac 12
& Mountain West conferences; the Pac 12 as a whole ranks 4th
according to SBPI while the MWC checks in at 9th (conference ranks
include the “Independents” comprised of Army, Notre Dame & BYU).

Let’s start with the Pac 12 North (teams sorted based on
strength/rank), which ranks 7th of the 16 divisions in FBS football:

RECORDS

Team

SBPI

Rank

Overall

Conf

STANFORD

271.7

2

4-1

3-0

CALIFORNIA

226.3

17

5-0

2-0

WASHINGTON

190.2

49

2-2

0-1

OREGON STATE

178.1

61

2-2

0-1

OREGON

163.8

77

3-2

1-1

WASHINGTON STATE

121.8

103

2-2

0-1

The Pac 12 North basically has three tiers of teams
according to current SBPI rankings:

·Tier One: Stanford & California

·Tier Two: Washington, Oregon State & Oregon

·Tier Three: Washington State

Taking my analysis a step further I have input my current
SBPI POWER RATING (not shown here but correlates directly to the SBPI rating
shown above) & played out the season for each team – the margin my SBPI
POWER RATING calculates directly relates to an estimated “win percentage” for
each game.Based on those calculations
here are the projected end of year standings:

PROJECTION

OVERALL

CONFERENCE

Team

WINS

LOSSES

WINS

LOSSES

STANFORD

10.3

1.7

8.6

0.4

CALIFORNIA

9.0

3.0

6.0

3.0

WASHINGTON

6.0

6.0

4.0

5.0

OREGON STATE

5.7

6.3

3.7

5.3

OREGON

5.3

6.7

3.3

5.7

WASHINGTON STATE

3.3

8.7

1.3

7.7

Stanford is the OVERWHELMING favorite to win the North
division at this point – and examining their schedule closer supports this
calculation: they only have TWO road games left on their Pac 12 docket –
Washington State & Colorado.Stanford should have a nice lead heading into their final two conference
games: hosting Oregon & California.They likely would need to get swept there to be in any danger of losing
the Pac 12 North.As far as the CFB
Playoff goes that opening week loss at Northwestern could come back to haunt
Stanford – but they will get a chance to redeem themselves somewhat in their
final game of the year when they host Notre Dame.In a year where the CFB Playoff race seems
wide open Stanford may still be alive, but needs Notre Dame to play well so
that potential end of season win “means something” in the eyes of the
committee.Oregon checks in at just 5th
of the 6 teams in the North but is likely to finish higher; the loss of QB
Vernon Adams has not helped things, but it’s their defense that is well below
average & will likely keep them from challenging in the division this
season.

Next up let’s move to the Pac 12 South (teams sorted based
on strength/rank) which is ranked 6th of the 16 divisions in FBS
football:

RECORDS

Team

SBPI

Rank

Overall

Conf

UTAH

225.3

18

4-0

1-0

USC

223.5

20

3-1

1-1

UCLA

202.8

39

4-1

1-1

ARIZONA STATE

192.0

45

3-2

1-1

COLORADO

166.2

71

3-2

0-1

ARIZONA

159.6

82

3-2

0-2

The Pac 12 South is also broken into three tiers according
to current SBPI ratings:

·Tier One: Utah & USC

·Tier Two: UCLA & Arizona State

·Tier Three: Colorado & Arizona

Here are the projected standings grid derived from following
same procedure discussed above:

PROJECTION

OVERALL

CONFERENCE

Team

WINS

LOSSES

WINS

LOSSES

UTAH

9.5

2.5

6.5

2.5

USC

8.1

3.9

5.8

3.2

UCLA

7.3

4.7

4.3

4.7

ARIZONA STATE

7.1

4.9

5.1

3.9

COLORADO

5.5

7.5

2.5

6.5

ARIZONA

5.4

6.6

2.4

6.6

The Pac 12 South is more wide open – much more wide open –
than the Pac 12 North when looking at current projections.It seems to be a two horse race, same as our
Tier analysis, between Utah & USC with the Utes currently forecasted to win
roughly 0.7 more conference games than the Trojans this year.On the surface is appears Arizona State would
have an outside shot as well, but with a head to head home loss to USC & a
trip to Salt Lake City still to come they are very unlikely to make up the
ground needed to be a factor.Utah &
USC meet in Los Angeles on October 24th, which is the week after USC
travels to South Bend to face the Irish in a headline grabbing night game.USC almost certainly needs to win this
matchup as my projection shows a sizable gap between the two & the Trojans
have the tougher remaining slate including visits to California &
Oregon.USC does have revenge in mind
after losing a tough one in Salt Lake City last season, which should give them
the extra boost they might be missing following the trip to ND.I believe Utah will win this division barring
an injury to QB Travis Wilson – which is entirely possible given his history.

I currently project The Pac 12 Championship Game to feature
10-2 Stanford vs. 10-2 Utah; if it plays out as such the winner would have an
outside shot at earning a trip to the CFB Playoff, with Utah being more likely
to earn a bid should they win the championship due to that Michigan win vs.
Stanford’s Northwestern loss (also depends on how Notre Dame finishes their
season).If Stanford wins the North
& Pac 12 Championship but loses to Notre Dame the Pac 12 will no question
be left out of the CFB Playoff.

The second conference we are breaking down today is the Mountain
West, which is annually one of the better, deeper non-Power 5 conferences (they
fall into the Group of 5 conferences).For this version I will use my actual SBPI Power Ratings vs. above using
my SBPI Raw Ratings (the Raw Ratings are simply the 15 statistics I track
graded on the 0-20 scale adjusted for SOS; the Power Rating are how those Raw
Ratings translate into a power rating that can be used to compare vs. Vegas
lines).

First up let’s take a look at the stronger division of the
two, the Mountain, which ranks 9th of the 16 divisions in FBS football:

RECORDS

Team

SBPI Power Rating

Rank

Overall

Conf

BOISE STATE

88.5

8

4-1

1-0

AIR FORCE

81.8

34

2-2

1-0

COLORADO STATE

76.8

58

2-3

0-1

UTAH STATE

74.4

72

2-2

1-0

NEW MEXICO

66.3

104

3-2

1-0

WYOMING

64.1

111

0-5

0-1

The tier analysis for the Mountain division of the MWC
yields:

·Tier One: Boise State

·Tier Two: Air Force

·Tier Three: Colorado State & Utah State

·Tier Four: New Mexico & Wyoming

Next let’s take a look at the projected standings using same
process described above:

PROJECTION

OVERALL

CONFERENCE

Team

WINS

LOSSES

WINS

LOSSES

BOISE STATE

9.8

2.2

6.8

2.2

AIR FORCE

7.7

4.3

5.8

3.2

COLORADO STATE

6.5

5.5

4.5

4.5

UTAH STATE

6.4

5.6

5.0

4.0

NEW MEXICO

4.7

7.3

2.7

6.3

WYOMING

1.3

10.7

1.3

7.7

Right now Boise State has a 1.0 projected wins edge on Air
Force – and with this type of analysis, if anything, the gaps between the
projected wins is bigger than estimate shown here.Let’s take a deeper look at the Air Force at
Boise State game and help explain our process for projecting records:

·Right now the SBPI POWER RATINGS on these two
teams stand at:

oAir Force 81.2

oBoise State 88.5

·That yields a difference of 7.3 points, meaning,
if these teams played on a neutral field tomorrow the SBPI would project the
Broncos winning by 7.3 points

·Next let’s layer in the HFA of 3.5 points (this
number is arbitrary to some degree, can vary from stadium to stadium obviously,
and can also be impacted on how “big” the game is)

·Adding that means the SBPI believes Boise State
would beat Air Force by 10.8 points on the blue turf

·That 10.8 point variance then fits into my
“estimated win %” matrix which yields Boise State getting 0.792 “wins” for this
game while Air Force earns 0.208

·Now if Air Force was to pull off the SU upset
the Falcons would pick up 0.792 wins, essentially giving them another full win
in this model

Now that you get more of a feel for the way this model works
we can see Boise State is the current projected winner of this division by ~1.0
games; but we also now know if Air Force was able to pull off the upset that
would essentially pull these teams even in my projection.With all that said Boise State will win this
division and has an outside shot at earning an invite to a “New Year’s Six”
bowl game, although unlikely because of their loss to BYU earlier in the
season.

Next up let’s examine the West division of the MWC, the
clear weaker of the two & one of the weakest divisions in FBS as it checks
in at 15th of the 16 divisions (only CUSA West is worse):

RECORDS

Team

SBPI Power Rating

Rank

Overall

Conf

SAN JOSE STATE

78.7

51

2-3

1-1

UNLV

76.6

62

2-3

1-0

SAN DIEGO STATE

69.5

94

2-3

1-0

NEVADA

65.6

109

2-3

0-1

FRESNO STATE

60.7

118

1-4

0-2

HAWAI'I

57.4

126

2-3

0-1

The tier analysis here only has two:

·Tier One: San Jose State & UNLV

·Tier Two: San Diego State, Nevada, Fresno State
& Hawaii

We can see this division is extremely weak, and frankly,
wide open.San Jose State & UNLV are
playing the best football of the group SO FAR in the 2015 season, but neither
is a juggernaut & could fall off a cliff at any time it seems.With that in mind scheduling is going to be
critical in determining who wins this division and likely gets a date with
Boise State in the Mountain West Conference Championship Game – so this next
analysis is key for this conference:

PROJECTION

OVERALL

CONFERENCE

Team

WINS

LOSSES

WINS

LOSSES

SAN JOSE STATE

6.8

5.2

5.3

3.7

UNLV

6.5

5.5

5.5

3.5

SAN DIEGO STATE

5.3

6.7

4.3

4.7

NEVADA

5.0

7.1

3.0

6.1

FRESNO STATE

2.5

9.5

1.5

7.5

HAWAI'I

3.6

9.4

1.1

7.9

This is the tightest conference of the four discussed this
week & also shows off the impact of SOS as the SBPI currently has San Jose
State as the best team in the MWC West, but projects UNLV to win the division
by 0.2 games with San Diego State having an outside shot.I would remove the Aztecs from the discussion
off the bat based on the fact they have to face both San Jose State & UNLV
on the road; that leaves us with the top two.These teams will battle it out in Vegas on Saturday night with the
winner having a clear edge as the tiebreaker itself is worth one game.In crossover action both have to play Boise
State & both get the Broncos at home so no edge there.I feel the winner of their head to head
matchup will win the division & will lean towards UNLV despite SBPI
favoring San Jose State; I like the new UNLV Head Coach’s ties to the Vegas
area & think his kids will come out fired up and handle their business.

That would leave Boise State, the prohibitive favorite in
the Mountain West heading into the season facing UNLV, of all teams, in the
Mountain West Championship Game.Right
now the SBPI would have Boise State favored by approximately 16.5 points in
that one – and we would expect the line to be close to that, maybe a hair
higher but under 21 as savvy bettors know UNLV is a much improved team this
season.

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